Herod having heard that the expected Messiah was born, foolishly feared that the new-born King would deprive him of his kingdom. Hence St. Fulgentius, reproving him for his folly, thus says: “Why, oh Herod, art thou thus disturbed? This King who is born has not come to conquer kings by arms, but to subjugate them, in a wonderful manner, by his death.”[1433] The impious Herod, therefore, waited to learn from the holy magi where the King was born, that he might take from him his life; but finding himself deceived by the magi, he ordered all the infants that could be found in the neighborhood of Bethlehem to be put to death. But an angel appeared in a dream to St. Joseph, and said to him: “Arise, and take the child and his mother, and fly into Egypt.”[1434] According to Gerson, immediately, on that very night, Joseph made this command known to Mary; and taking the infant Jesus, they commenced their journey, as it seems clearly from the Gospel itself: “Who arose and took the child and his mother by night, and retired into Egypt.” Oh God, as blessed Albertus Magnus says in the name of Mary, must he, then, who came to save men flee from men? “Debet fugere qui salvator est mundi?”[1435] And then the afflicted Mary knew that already the prophecy of Simeon, regarding her Son, was beginning to be verified: “He is set for a sign which shall be contradicted.”[1436] Seeing that scarcely is he born, when he is persecuted to death. What suffering it must have been to the heart of Mary, writes St. John Chrysostom, to hear the tidings of that cruel exile of herself with her Son! Flee from thy friends to strangers, from the holy temple of the only true God, to the temples of demons. What greater tribulation than that a new-born child, clinging to its mother’s bosom, should be forced to fly with the mother herself![1437]